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Thots on Thots on Thot

Thoughts on the word ‘thot’

The latest in internet slang is “thot.” I was first exposed to the word by rapper Azealia Banks using the term on twitter. ‘Does she mean thought?’ I wondered. So naturally – I googled. According to Urban Dictionary thot stands for “that hoe over there.” As a feminist, you can imagine my horror at the invention of yet another word used to objectify and abuse women.

I jumped to the next related search and was linked to a rap song called “Love No Thotties” by Chief Keef. He raps, “I jus wanna fuck all you, I don’t wanna wife you / But you gotta brush your teeth and do what I say do.” In the song he describes a girl that he likes but won’t “wife” because of her promiscuity. This doesn’t surprise me at all. Chief Keef isn’t the first rapper to write a song about objectifying women. I can’t be certain he was the first to use the word thot but he seems the first to popularize it. His official video for “Love No Thotties” has over 9.4 million views on YouTube.

Hundreds of years of patriarchy have trained us to believe that our value as women is based on purity and modesty. Thot is just another word for slut. Okay, so we all know slut is used as an insult for women with more than the accepted number of sexual partners. Women are called sluts because of the way they dress. Women are called sluts even for just buying condoms or taking birth control. Almost every girl I know, promiscuous or not, has been called a slut or a whore before. Do we really need another anti-woman word in our vocabulary?

I get that women can use words like slut, whore, and even thot as words of empowerment. But to 99.9% of people – it still has negative connotations. In the famous words of Tina Fey, “You all have to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for other guys to call you sluts and whores.” When you call another woman a slut or a “thot”, it’s implied that there is something wrong with a woman freely expressing her sexuality.

Women shouldn’t have to be embarrassed or shamed for taking care of their reproductive health. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look or feel sexy. Women’s bodies (all shapes and sizes included) are beautiful and should be celebrated. Women shouldn’t have to apologize or be patronized for their sexual experiences. There are no words in the English language to punish men for having too much sex or dressing too provocatively. In fact, promiscuity in men is not just condoned it’s glorified. In the spirit of gender equality, words like slut, whore, hoe, and thot should not exist. I’m deleting them from my vocabulary and so should you